Saturday, we pile in the van to take Zoe to a friend’s house for the afternoon, and I switch on navigation on my phone.  All the times Zoe’s been there to play, for birthday parties, and Kevin has always driven her.  Before we pull out of the driveway, the digital female voice has repeated the […]

It will look worse before it looks better. Spring cleaning in early summer (because it takes me weeks to find the sabbatical I’ve been chasing), and this I keep reminding myself while making dinner on a tiny slice of counter top in the kitchen.  In the background, the collection of pitchers I pushed back to […]

It’s as though every day is the first time I’ve met God, the first time I’ve loved Him. I wake up and I can’t remember who I am, or that I’m abundantly blessed.  I feel trapped in the weary, aware of the walls that surround me, boxed in and dull.  And then He shows me […]

I know how you feel. Days come when I wake up and think, I don’t want to do this. I feel like the husk of a woman, emptied. I am clay, a bowl dusty from the kiln, all scooped out by the master’s hand and cooling in the ashes.  With His fingers He has crumbled and […]

Source: healthyfitandtoned.tumblr.com via Elysa on Pinterest Won’t you come and run with me?  The skies are blue, the sun warm and guilding life with gold, the road open with possibility. I am a runner.  And it teaches. And I’m not trying to be dramatic about it, but the truth is this:  I never believed I […]

Thursday morning, and it hits me. The tears unexpected, I turn the corner into our neighborhood, thankful I’ve made it well beyond the place where I left my kids before the emotion rolls over me in waves, making me gasp. Sometimes it happens that way. I’m going on about my day, and then I see […]

Tuesday night, Zoe stood on the stage at school, nervous even though she’d said she wouldn’t be; all decked out in black velvet, deep green organza, and the sparkly tights.  They were itchy—the tights—but she wore them anyway, and that’s how I knew what this spelling bee meant to her. That, and the fact that […]

go to the dentist Last Thursday, I wrote it nonchalantly on the schedule, just below morning chores and breakfast. The girls already knew.  Riley pays attention to the calendar, had prayed about it the night before.  Remembering the last visit—when the dentist pulled me aside right next to Zoe and told me two of her permanent […]

Last week, Kevin and I went backpacking on the Appalachian Trail.  I loved it.  And I hated it.  And now, days later, I still want to go back. Identity intrigues me, the way we allow the details of life to shape our perception of possibility; the way I have limited my own view of who […]

This is the first year that Adam has been able to tell me what he wants for Christmas.  Just a few weeks ago, I stood in the kitchen wrapping my arms around my nine year old son, who laughed but squirmed with discomfort.  I kissed him on the cheek and smiled into bright blue eyes […]